We Are The Public Sphere is a weblog created for the ADHT Publicizing Creative Work class this semester. Students post short pieces about social media, new media, and their own work, framed by critical debates about the role of making information public in the formation of consensus in a democratic society. The challenge is to explore the immediacy of this free platform with an awareness of reception by a broader public. What are issues of legitimate public concern? How can work be framed to appeal to these issues and reach a wider audience? Are there emerging practices within their fields that contribute to the advancement of the discipline or to public understanding of the field? What would you share with your friends on social media, and what would make them want to share it as well? So far the results have been sometimes engaging, periodically revealing, and, of course, as can be expected, at times intentionally trivial. But the platform gives students an opportunity to frame their ideas in a way that reaches beyond the classroom into what we’re calling, borrowing Habermas’s terminology, the democratic public sphere.
Image: Students from Parsons ADHT Publicizing Creative Work class at the Van Alen Bookstore, on 22nd Street, before a talk by Storefront for Art and Architecture director Eva Franch.
